A/N. And here's the second chapter! Hope you guys enjoy this one as well!

Disclaimer: I own nothing!

2: In This Together

She might not ever be the first to admit it, but Nagisa was as much a skeptic as she was a believer. And as contradictory and paradoxical as that sounded, it was in fact the truth. There were as many things she did believe in, as there were things she didn't. She didn't believe in karma, though some might beg to differ. And reincarnation was about as overrated as overrated could be in her book. But she believed in ghosts with as much sureness as she believed the Kyuubi to be the biggest conniving jerk she'd ever had the displeasure of meeting, what with the blasted fuzz ball laughing at her every time she had to go to him so the both of them wouldn't wind up buried six feet under. But if there was one thing that she could never be shaken in, aside from her belief in never giving up, it was Murphy's Law.

"Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong."

If you are in a battle with enemy shinobi, and it is only you and two other teammates against roughly a dozen or so more of them, if not a hundred depending on how badly Lady Luck wants to screw your life over. Chances are high that by the end said battle, both of your teammates have been more or less knocked senseless, you are probably the only one still conscious, and you yourself are probably a millisecond away from killing over due to extreme blood loss.

In retrospect, considering that she believed so heavily in said law of cause and effect, she shouldn't have been as shocked as she was when she had found out that her childhood friend, Itachi Uchiha, man who would murder a thousand just to make three measly people happy, had been accused of murdering his whole entire clan. Leaving only his precious baby brother as the lone survivor of one of the greatest tragedies to ever hit Konoha, and their friend and his cousin, Shisui, missing. But still, she was. This was Itachi they were talking about, a boy who at the age of eleven, not even a year after getting out of the academy, risked his life to try and get her back after some foreign ninja had tried to turn her into a tool to be used against her own village. The boy who had grown to love the village enough to give a limb or two for. Itachi had done more for Konohagakure than even a few of the councilmen had done in their whole lives, and yet, here and now, the villagers loitered about calling him traitor when just the day before they had been showering him with praise.

If she wasn't as loyal to the village as she was, she very well might've gone traitor herself, drawing a kunai and embedding it into the skull of the closest villager before possibly setting the place ablaze and walking away with what some might consider Armageddon at her back and a maniacal laughter on her lips. She really would've turned into what the villagers had feared for so long now. As things stood currently though, she didn't have the time nor patience to be going nuke-nin without so much as a warning beforehand, and in the first place she had a mission. Assigned to her by the man she thought of like a grandfather and which kept a personal stake in her heart.

Itachi had left his little brother alive.

Only the gods knew how the six year old boy was handling such traumatizing events. But she'd be damned, three times over, if she let him handle it all on his own. Itachi had gone running off without an explanation, possibly taking Shisui with him, and had left two of his siblings behind. Even if one of them was only that in everything but blood, he was in for it when she finally managed to get her hands around that stringy little neck of his. Right after beating the living crap out of him and dragging him back to the village, just so she could make him beg for forgiveness over his own stupidity. He'd owe her more than just a couple of bowls of ramen from Ichiraku by the time she was down. She'd make him go bankrupt in vengeance. Or maybe just paint his room an ungodly shade of kill-me-please pink again. That had gotten a hilarious reaction the last three times she'd done it as payback.

"A-Ano…"

"What?!" She barked at the voice, wincing at her own sharpness as she watched some poor girl flinch away from her at the probably downright livid expression on her face. "Kami-sama, I'm sorry. It's just…"

"Having a rough day?"

"You have no idea." Nagisa smiled, her lips tight and pressed together as she ran a hand through long locks of golden blonde hair. When was the last time she had cut it anyways? Wouldn't matter at this point, soon she'd be playing civilian guardian instead of anbu commander and how long her hair got wouldn't be much of a problem any longer. She wasn't at risk of getting into a hair pulling tussle with some ninny of a kunoichi who didn't know the difference between the sharp end of a kunai and the handle.

"Kami-sama, you must be exhausted if you don't recognize me." The girl said, reaching up a hand to push stray locks of dirt brown hair the color of nutrient rich soil out of her face. Pale blue eyes glittering mischievously the whole entire time.

"Hmm?" It took her a few seconds of outright blank staring before her frazzled brain finally caught up to the conversation, and for that matter, who she was conversating with. "Oh my… Rika!" She all but cheered, practically throwing her arms around the sorely-missed girl, one of the few that after overcoming her own fear of socializing with anyone not ten years younger than her finally managed to talk and befriend her. She couldn't count the number of times the aspiring medic-nin had saved her butt after getting in over her head with enemy shinobi. She was sure that if the girl hadn't been around when she had been on several occasions, she'd be dead and buried instead of standing in front of her chatting right now. It was only after that thought that she realized that at some point during her mini rant inside her head, she'd managed to walk herself straight into Konohagakure's hospital without realizing it.

"Finally you recognize me! Where have you been?"

"Kami-sama, I just got back from a mission in Wave. Do you know how many times I feel into water? I've never been so drenched in all my life!" She complained, finally feeling the pent up stress leave, her body relaxing after what had felt like the longest, most arduous day she'd ever had in her life thus far. She guessed it was to be expected though, talking to Rika was like getting a breath of fresh air after spending three years in a stuffy room filled stagnant air. In other words, the most refreshing thing in the world. It was no wonder she was the nurse usually placed in change of the children that wound up in Konoha's hospital. Unlike most other women and men that worked in the place, she knew how to smile and laugh, how to be their friend and keep them feeling safe and entertained. The others only knew how to attach a limb that had been blown off by someone carelessly stepping on a bomb tag in the midst of battle, how to piece together those that had been torn apart by war and when to put them out of their misery when it was obvious that the damage was just too much. They only knew how to fix a shinobi, and that they needed no comfort because for them, their very lives were constantly at risk due to the occupation they had chosen. They knew how to patch up an injury yes, but they had become so desensitized to bloodshed and death, that they didn't know how to make anyone feel comfortable in the antiseptic environment that was the brain-numbingly white walls of a hospital.

"And of course you would be the shinobi that falls into a river some thousand times, and yet still manages to leave the large majority of the men she's placed in charge of quivering in their boots if they so much as snicker at you."

"Damn right I am. And proud of it too."

"You're starting to sound like Tsume-sama." Rika laughed, bringing up a hand to cover her lips as the two began to walk through the lobby. "So what brings you here of all places? Don't tell me you managed to actually get yourself injured again!"

"I can proudly say that nope! I actually managed to come back from a mission completely unscathed." She grinned mischievously, actually looking proud herself for the fact, though she guessed she could be. The times she came back without so much as a paper cut on her pinky were rare, few and far between. But it was to be expected with the job she had taken. She could've been a store keeper, a civilian occupation that required less handling of deadly sharp objects and slips of paper that could result in the loss of a limb or two if handled incorrectly. But she had chosen to be a shinobi, and life-at-risk almost all the time aside, she was happy. Though at this point in time, her life could've been going a lot better.

"Well that's a first. So what are you here for?" At the thought, Nagisa's expressions changed. Taking a turn for the extremely serious as she adopted her "Anbu-Leader" face, as Shisui had once jokingly called it while poking her in the cheek trying to get her to stop glaring death at the leader of the Uchiha clan, and getting knocked senseless not even five seconds later. She couldn't remember a time Itachi had laughed so hard.

"I'm here to pick up the Uchiha brat."

"You mean Sasuke Uchiha? But wh- Oh, so Hokage-sama chose you to watch over him." Rika's expression turned solemn, and Nagisa had to fight her emotions down as she saw the telltale sign of tears threatening to spill from what were normally such happy eyes. "Kami-sama, how? I mean… I can't believe Itachi-kun actually did something like that…" The slightly older girl laughed, a broken harsh sound that made her ears hurt despite how quiet it was, and made Nagisa's heart feel like a nail had been driven through it. She faintly remembered that Rika had been one of a few girls that had had a crush on the older Uchiha. And not the superficial kind dependent on a manufactured image of the real thing either.

She'd wanted to genuinely get to know Itachi, and to at least be a little close to him. She'd been too shy to ever confess her feelings to the at the time boy, but Nagisa had guessed by the way that the other had looked at the girl sometimes when they talked, that he knew of her feelings. True, they had never been returned. She had had no delusions of ever playing match-maker for the two, as love-struck as the at-the-time shy girl could get, Itachi was not the type to fond over girls at that age. He'd had other things in mind. More important than finding a nice girl that could possibly become his wife somewhere in the far off future. Or at least it was seen that way in his book. Now Itachi had supposedly gone traitor on all of them and abandoning the village for some unknown reason. And while she might not have believed for a split second that he had done it for any reason that wasn't something selfless, she still felt the raw burn of hatred and anger building up for his actions, settling heavy in her stomach and making her almost violently ill.

"Just… Can you take me to his room?"

"Huh?" The girl questioned, tears streaming down her face and making the relatively young girl look a lot older and worn down than she had when they had more or less run into each other. "Oh!" She grasped in sudden realization, arm coming up to wipe the tears from her face and eyes before rapidly nodding her head in confirmation. "Of course, right this way. If you don't mind signing in…"

"Right!"

"Now, I'll warn you right now. He's been kind of… Ah, what's the word? Moody? Since he woke up. The doctors think he might be in shock from the… you know." Nagisa nodded, watching as Rika nervously fidgeted in front of the doorway, eying the last Uchiha like he was going to suddenly jump out of the hospital bed and attack. She didn't see what there was to be afraid of though. The six year old looked small, and even though she wasn't looking him straight in the face, she could still clearly see the vulnerability that was so blatantly obvious in his eyes; a broken little boy, lost and alone with his whole entire family dead and his brother, a supposed traitor. Only the gods above knew how many lies had probably been shoved into that little tale, and just how many of them had come straight from the supposed culprit himself.

Itachi had always been bad at telling the truth, to anyone really. If they were close to him and they didn't know what was really going on, than whether he be damned or not. Chances were that you wouldn't find out the truth till he was dead, and knowing him as well as she did. Nagisa guessed that he'd take the secret to the grave with him if he could. The best of secrets were often kept well enough, only when the people who knew them were all long gone. After all, a dead man told no tales, their lips forever stilled by the grip of the shinigami.

That wasn't her main problem at the moment though.

"Kami, I don't even know how I'm going to handle this. I've never had to deal with kids before! Jiji should've gotten someone else to do this." She complained, running a hand through her hair again as she paced the few feet in front of the door. The boy hadn't noticed either of them yet, and if she was lucky she might be able to speed on back to the hokage to tell him she couldn't do it without him noticed.

"Oh come on, Nagi. You and I both know you're worrying for nothing. You won't know until you try! Who knows, you might even be a natural!"

"But Rika! You don't get it! That boy has lost his entire family! His brother's off running in the winds, I'm not even sure what I'm gonna do if I ever see Itachi again!"

"And I almost feel bad for him. Every time you say that, the second you see the person you wind up socking them in the face so hard they wind up seeing stars for weeks."

"Shut up, he needs the stars knocked out of him." She barked, the tease in her voice matching the one that could be heard in Rika's before she got serious once again. "Damn, it's not like I can understand him…"

"What do you mean?"

"Rika, I'm not like you and the others! I've never had parents before. I've never had a family!" She bit out, struggling to keep her voice low enough that Sasuke wouldn't hear her yelling at the other girl. "I was an orphan the day I was born! Sasuke had a family! He's had a mom and a dad, he had a whole off shoot of family members I don't even know what to call them! And supposedly, he walked right into his older brother, the man he all but worshipped, killing both his mother and father!"

"Nagisa…"

"I don't know what it feels like to lose a family! Up until I met Itachi, I didn't even know what it was like to be loved to any degree. In case you and the Hokage forgot, I was hated, despised in fact. Half the village wanted me dead and the other half refused to acknowledge the fact that I existed! At least the village will accept him, I had to work my ass off to get even a few people to recognize that maybe I wasn't the monster everyone else made me out to be."

"And yet here you are. Fighting and proving to those that still won't accept you that you are not the big bad boogeyman they fear so much." Rika said, her expression suddenly very gentle as she reached up, a hand coming up to raise her chin so the other would look at her. "Nagi-chan, you have more in common with Sasuke than you think. Yes, you are older than him, by more or less eleven years in fact. But you are also all that is left of the big brother that he knew. You are his proof that maybe not everything Itachi-kun did was a lie. You both are alone now. And while you might now understand what it is like to lose your whole entire family in one night, you know what it is like to not have one at all."

"So?"

"That's more than I can say for the rest of this village. If anyone in the village can understand what that type of loneliness feels like. It's you. So…" The older girl paused, turning Nagisa around and moving her so that she stood directly in front of the door way. "Get in there! He's your responsibility now, orders of the Hokage himself!"

"Gah!" Nagisa cried, all but stumbling as the other pushed her into the room without any warning. She flinched as the door slammed shut behind her, an obvious message that Rika would insure that she had all the privacy she needed to for as long as it was necessary. She was a split second from swearing out the girl regardless, but was stopped by probably the most saddest voice she'd ever heard.

"Nagisa-nee-chan?" She flinched again, turning around slowly to look the six year old boy she'd suddenly been left alone with in the eye. And the sight almost broke her heart. Here was the boy that used to cling to Itachi whenever the chance arose, now looking at her like the world had suddenly come to an end, and he had no idea why.

"Oh… Uh, hey…" She sighed, allowing the hand she'd been using to wave nervously at him to drop back to her side before walking over and taking up a spot at the foot of the bed. "How you holding up, Kiddo?"

"…Why?" She couldn't stop herself from sighing again, watching as the boy broke down right in front of her very eyes. And she couldn't help but think of the mess Itachi had left her to clean up. He'd broken his brother to pieces, was it now her job to put him back together? "Why did Itachi-nii do that?"

"I don't know…"

"But you knew Itachi-nii best! How could you not know?!" She knew he was only lashing out at her because she was there. She was the one that was near his brother the most, the one that knew more about the older Uchiha than their own father and mother did combined. She should've known the answer, she herself felt like she should've. But she didn't, and maybe that was why she hated this whole thing so much. She may have known that there was a reason for it all, but she didn't know what that was. And it aggravated her to no end. "I-Itachi-nii… He…" She could barely contain her own tears as she pulled the younger boy into her arms, biting her lip to contain the sob that was threatening to rip itself from her throat. She was a shinobi, and while Sasuke might not have been privy to that little fact, she still needed to keep herself together. She needed to keep herself strong, for the both of them.

"I know it hurts… Sasuke, you have no idea how much I understand that fact. Itachi was just as much a brother to me as he was to you. But there was a reason why he did it. And while it may not make sense at first. Eventually it will."

"He said he was doing it to test the limits of his abilities…" Her eyes widened at that little tidbit. If that wasn't the most un-Itachi like thing she'd ever heard… It was a blatant lie, and she knew it. Itachi had had a reason, but he was doing that damned self-sacrificial thing he always did. 'Damned idiot is just asking to have something backfire on him… Testing the limits of his abilities… If you were going to come up with a lie Itachi, at least make it believable! Little…' She huffed, pulling away from the younger to get a better look at his face. He had his eyes largely focused on his lap, but she needed him to look her in the eye, otherwise she'd feel like she was talking to a wall.

"Sasuke, Sasuke look at me…" She ordered, her tone gentle as she lifted the boy's face up, onyx eyes looking at her in confusion. "I'm going to be honest with you. You probably won't like what I'm going to say, but I think it's important you know this. Itachi lied to you." The boy looked like he was about to object, but she kept him doing so, hushing him as she brushed down messy locks of hair that obviously hadn't been combed down in a while. She'd need to remember to get the boy cleaned up once their living arrangements had been situated and the two had more or less settled. "I know Itachi, and while he might be a self-sacrificing idiot that needs to be slapped upside the face more times that I can count. And yes, I will admit, he wasn't too fond of your father or your family in general. He would not have murdered his whole entire clan just to test how strong he was. If he wanted to do that he would've dragged your cousin Shisui to some off shoot training ground that nobody in their right mind visits just so they can pound each other's faces in while I watch from the sidelines and call them derogatory nicknames just to piss the both of them off further." She grinned at the small laugh she got from that last part of the sentence.

It had been on more than one occasion that she had secretly gone behind the older Uchiha's back and dragged his brother along on one of their many misadventures just to watch his brother lose his cool and then yell at her for teaching Sasuke "bad words" while the two cousins beat each other to a bloody pulp. It brought back fond memories of a time when things weren't nearly as confusing for the boy as it was now.

"Listen to me, ok?" the boy nodded, wiping the tears from his face and putting on the bravest expression a six year old could after just losing their family. "I don't know why Itachi did what he did, and all be honest, I'm even less likely to figure it out with your dimwit cousin Shisui missing as well." She paused, making a mental note to knock some sense into him as well before continuing. "But we'll figure this out together alright? You and me both. And once we do, we'll go track down that idiot brother of yours and give him a well-deserved slap upside the head for the all the problems he's caused, and drag him back to the village. He'll be on his hands and knees begging for forgiveness by the time we're through with him!"

"Yeah!" The six year old agreed, sniffing slightly as he took on a much more determined expression. "But…" the boy paused, gaze drifting down to his hands before looking up at the older girl again. "What'll happen to me in the mean time?" In response to the question, Nagisa leant down, giving Sasuke an all too familiar sign of affection by butting their foreheads together gently. She'd only just barely noted the fact that though she had complained to Rika about not handling kids before, she'd actually lied. She'd handled Sasuke before, and while in her panic the thought hadn't crossed her mind, she realized that yes, Sasuke was a child, just like any of the others.

"Silly, don't worry about that! Leave it to your big sister! She's already got everything taken care of!"

"Really?"

"Yep, soon as everything's ready, you'll be coming to live with me!"

She'd never admit it to anyone except maybe Itachi, simply because she was terrible at hiding anything from him. But she'd never been so thankful to the hokage before in all her life. For all of her prior reluctance when it came to accepting this mission, she realized something. The genuinely happy and excited expression that took over the young boy's face, that sheer air of content, made all the future pains and struggles they'd be going through trying to figure this out more than just worth it.

"Don't worry Sasuke. I won't let you deal with all of this alone."

A/N. And finally chapter two! Almost twice as long as the first chapter I think. But hey, I was having fun! Anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter and again, thanks for reading! Please leave a review to tell me what you thought of it. See ya!